Cherokee Village financial struggles

Friday, September 9, 2011

Editor:

For months, I have been reading about the financial struggles of Cherokee Village. Now, I want to offer my observations.

Let me start by saying I am not a college graduate. I have no degree in bookkeeping or economics. I was raised on a farm where I was taught good, old common sense, which is obviously lacking in our city government. In the first place, there was never enough business located in the village to sustain the city, nor is there now enough business to keep it going.

The idea that SID assessments would supplement the city was at best a gamble. Someone from up north moved here to retire and wanted to improve on Mr. Cooper's dream. Instead, they destroyed it.

Mr. Cooper wanted a place for folks to retire and enjoy their older years -- living with nature and enjoying the amities of the golf courses, pools, clubs and social activities. Instead, someone from a city came in and said, "Oh, we need to be a city, we want what a city has," and promptly started tearing things apart.

We now have a city government for which we have no taxes to support. Instead of beautiful trees and wildlife, the trees at town center are gone and the wildlife we came here to enjoy are being shot off by the hundreds all because someone doesn't like the deer in their yards. The deer were here first. I understand overcrowding and a need to thin them out, but not the need to try to kill them all off.

We have a children's playground that cost money to build to ensure the HUD housers have a place for their children to play. Oh yes, and the HUD houses, thanks to those wanting an extra income without risk, we now have HUD houses all over the village. This brings in the wrong type of people to our once-called retirement village. We have a drug problem here which we would not have had if it were still a private retirement village the way Mr. Cooper wanted.

I heard on the radio that there are about 60 percent of the property in the village up for sale. Here's a thought for the mayor and councilmen -- could it be that many of the retirees did not get what they bargained for moving to a retirement village, not a city?

I know we are very disappointed that some city slickers came here and ruined things for us. Oh, and don't try to convince me that we are better off. I can read and I can understand what I hear and read. As for the one-cent tax, that would be like putting a bandaid on a heart patient after surgery. It won't work. Wake up and dissolve this farce you call a city before the rest of us leave.